Royal Library to review ‘offensive’ material

The Royal Library in Stockholm is setting up a new Council for National Minorities. One of the aims is to draw attention to material that is considered “offensive” or “objectionable”.

The library has several collections of books, movies, newspapers, etc. that are several hundred years old. Now it feels it must “take responsibility for the older collections by calling attention to the fact that material may be offensive or objectionable.

– We know that there are parts of the Royal Library’s collections and descriptions that can be considered offensive today because they were created at a time when the view of minorities was different, says National Librarian Karin Grönvall in a press release.

This can include describing the material, how it should be presented or that an explanatory text should be added. For example, work has already been done on “Sápmi on film”, which has been provided with ethical recommendations.

– We hope that this work will lead to interesting discoveries in the collections or better descriptions, where the national minorities’ part in the common history becomes more visible and clearer, says Grönvall.

The library is now looking for members of the Jewish, Roma, Sami, Swedish-Finnish and Tornedalian communities to join the council.